


Oar-mate

by Katherine



Category: Outcast - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Gen, M/M, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5048686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before, it had not mattered to Jason who was chained to the galley bench with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oar-mate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



Before, it had not mattered to Jason who was chained to the galley bench with him. It was all one with the effort of rowing, with the savage scrabble for food and the sour wine, all one with the heavy pull of the oar in his hands and the motions of the sea under the galley. Then, in some strange manner he did not understand, the man new-chained beside him became familiar, and it mattered very much to him that this was Beric.

Very rarely, yet not never, in that first year with Beric chained beside him Jason seemed to feel himself come awake. At such times he saw the pumice-smoothed white of the oar stretching from where they held it, and he thought of a pale wall. That had been a thing Jason had in himself, to come to an unmarked wall and know what to paint upon it.

Then over the months that followed each breath he pulled in felt a fraction more difficult than the last. This in turn became an ache so everpresent he almost might have forgotten it, similar to the rarely-noticed hurt in his hands on the oar-shaft. After that, the coughing, and seeing Beric stealing a moment to look at him in concern. Beric would oftener than before move his hand on the oar until he touched Jason's.

Other than the brush of hands they only ever stole their moments to touch each other from sleep, or from those rare times when all the rowers were stood off. Never from rowing; not to pull would have meant the whip, or if repeated the scourge. Their moments were few. If they did not sink immediately to sleep, when they were huddled together. A hand placed on sun-cracked skin. What they whispered between them. Jason touched Beric by giving him a piece of his life before, of what he had carried in his heart. All of those small moments added together made a connection that bound them one to the other.

When the endless pull on the oar took Jason's life his body was given to the sea. Yet Jason's spirit remained bound to Beric his oar-mate. This binding of his spirit was as strong as the chains that kept Jason shackled, yet set upon Jason more lightly. He waited, less visible than a trickle of smoke from a banked hearth-fire, as Jason fought in intended vengeance. He waited as Beric was whipped, Beric's blood trickling slow as Jason's own had at the end of his life.

When Beric hung on the deck, shackled as an example to the other slaves, Jason lingered in front of him. He could not touch Beric any longer, but he could be present, a wisp pale like cloud against the blue sky when Beric opened his eyes.


End file.
